Exhibition | EREWHON | Margaret Lawrence Gallery VCA

Tony Garifalakis, Woodland, From the series Hills Have Eyes 2014, Fabric collages, 177 x 112 cm

Tony Garifalakis, Woodland, From the series Hills Have Eyes 2014, Fabric collages, 177 x 112 cm

Exhibition Dates: 1st September 2016 – 1st October 2016

Brook Andrew, Mikala Dwyer & Justene Williams, Tony Garifalakis, Claire Lambe, Clare Milledge

Curated by Vikki McInnes

Erewhon is the (almost) return of Neverwhere, an exhibition that travelled to Istanbul last year, commissioned by Asialink as part of the ‘Australia in Turkey’ cultural festival. Neverwhere presented the work of eight contemporary Australian artists to disturb distinctions between our real and imagined selves, and between the authentic and the proposed. Narratives were informed by external – and often mysterious – forces, both seen and unseen; the exhibition shifted registers between sincerity and satire although its propensity was to shadowy psychological turns. And it is farther in this direction – towards the darker, more charged imaginings – that the work in Erewhon leads.

More correctly, of course, Erewhon is the (not quite syntactically correct) return of ‘Nowhere’ and title of a novel by Samuel Butler, first published anonymously in 1872. Erewhon was set in a fictional eponymous country – though one that strongly resembled the south of New Zealand in which Butler lived as a young man. The story provided a satire (and philosophical exploration) of various aspects of Victorian society, most notably crime and punishment, religion and science. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders were treated as if they were ill, whereas ill people were looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon was the absence of machines due to the widely shared belief by the Erewhonians that they were potentially dangerous. These ideas – among others (the effects of colonisation, technological progress, the impossibility of utopias, discipline and punishment) – form both the thesis and the point of departure for the exhibition Erewhon.

Margaret Lawrence Gallery: 40 Dodds Street
 Southbank VIC 3006 Map

Gallery Hours | Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm – 5pm

T: +61 3 9035 9400 | 
ml-gallery@unimelb.edu.au

Wheelchair accessible – Admission is free

Website: http://vca.unimelb.edu.au/engage/margaret-lawrence-gallery

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